Trini nodded. “When we are lonely, and that is often, he comes to play in the afternoon. He can’t speak. He found Mamá’s bultito.”
A glimmer of light came into Sabochi’s face. He shaped the word with his lips, “Matilda.” The feeling fell gently among them, and Trini understood the rush of light in Sabochi’s face, for Matilda had meant much to the young Indian. Trini wanted the reasons for his feelings. She recalled, “She was special to you.”
“Very special.” Sabochi had caught the distance of the light and was looking back to a time with Matilda. The story was in his eyes. Trini did not disturb his memories. Matilda had found a very young Sabochi half-dead from a fall and had nursed him back to health. He had been suspicious of mestizos at first. Indians had little faith in white men and less in those Indians who had mixed with the white men. Sabochi’s real name was Ambrosio, but when he had referred to José Mario’s family as chaboches, the Indian name for mestizos, Matilda had fondly renamed him “Sabochi.” The name Sabochi stuck, and so did his closeness to the family. For a moment Trini felt uneasy. Sabochi coming alive at the mere mention of her mamá’s name. Was that love? She disturbed his memories.
“You loved her.”
“Always. I became Sabochi because of her. I am part of you because of her. I have tried to be your ‘mother’ because of her . . .”
Trini could see that he was treading on memories again. She breathed deeply through half-opened lips. Her thoughts were about Matilda too. I miss you so. I miss you so. But you’re with me, aren’t you? Like earth and sun, never to be lost. Sabochi had not seen Mamá’s bultito. “You want to see the bultito?”
Words came out softly, floods of memory in his eyes, “Matilda’s bultito!” He looked off toward the house as if expecting Matilda to appear at any moment. Trini ran into the house and brought out the bultito, placing it in his hands with great care. He opened the little blue bundle, laying out the cloth gently on his lap and picking up and touching each metal piece. Matilda was very real, far beyond my realness, thought Trini, far beyond his own realness. Such were the histories of the heart. Sabochi broke the spell. He tied up the bundle slowly and handed it back to Trini, then jumped up and looked at the laden fig tree, exclaiming solemnly, “Mmmmmmm—figs! Get the ladder, Buti.”
“Me too, me too, me too!” Lupita was jumping up and down.
“You too,” agreed Sabochi, laughing.
Buti ran around the side of the house with Lupita following at his heels. Trini went to the kitchen for a bowl. In the quiet of the kitchen, she paused to sort out her feelings. In her hand was the bultito. It was hers now. José Mario had given it to her. Sabochi loved Matilda. Feelings mixed and pulled in opposite directions, love, envy, loss, all one in her special loneliness. From the kitchen, through the window, she watched Sabochi take the ladder from Buti and Lupita, out of breath from lugging it across the yard. By the time Trini came out with a tazón for the figs, Sabochi was high and hidden among the branches pregnant with the sweetness of the earth. The figs were falling rapidly to the ground. Buti was eating them as fast as he gathered them.
“He’s eating them all,” complained Lupita.
“Stop now,” scolded Trini. “You have to wash them first.”
“In here.” Trini had placed the tazón in front of him. Buti didn’t argue. He obediently started to put them in the tazón. After a while Sabochi’s voice fell from among the leaves. “¡Basta!”
They all agreed; they had more than enough.
Enough—enough. Memories were not enough. Trini felt the old restlessness rising. She didn’t want to wait for El Enano anymore. She didn’t want to be locked up in the yard for the whole of a weekend. She needed someone other than her brother and sister. She watched the children lying on their stomach watching the turtle snugly hidden in his shell. She looked out towards Sabochi’s cave—empty, empty, empty. She slid down from the rocks and went into the house. The front room was shaded and cool. From the cupboard she took out the bultito and opened it. Little silver happenings, evoking mysteries! Mamá’s gone. Sabochi’s gone. Memories of spun silver, leaf sea, figs, and the magic of Sabochi. So long ago! Or was it that time stretched out in her impatience?
She picked up a piece of a mirror and looked at her reflection, eyes somber, a trace of womanliness in the shape of mouth. Still a child’s face, a face wanting so many things unhad.
Tía Pancha, austere virgin of thirty-three, stared down at the children. They knelt before her, looking straight up her nose.
“Buquis, inquesen! Pídanle a Dios gracias, y pidan que les ilumine el pensamiento.”
Mouthing words, one on top of the other, the children did as they were told. They thanked God, asking Him to illuminate their thoughts. Buti fell on his haunches, then straightened up only to fall again. Trini’s knees felt tender, not being used to kneeling for so long, while Lupita gave up altogether. She sat cross-legged on the floor looking dejected.
“Up, child, up!”
Lupita struggled to her knees, wobbled, then went back on her haunches like Buti. Tía Pancha looked at them disapprovingly, sighing in resignation. I wish I understood the God Tía Pancha brought with her from San Mateo, thought Trini. She had never seen such passion for a God before. Her aunt stood fervently before them, strangely gaunt and tall, attempting to awaken the clay of spirit and body. She began the rosary prayers:
“Holy Mary, mother of God, blessed be thou among women and blessed be the fruit of thy womb, Jesus . . .”
So many Hail Marys and Our Fathers in one rosary! The long string of beads had to make one complete circle back to the crucifix. All eyes were on the crucifix, the stop sign, the sign for them to groan themselves out of their kneeling positions. Evening prayers were twice as long as morning prayers, the sharp timbre of Tía Pancha’s voice arousing new feelings.
Her words on human worthlessness were a new experience for the children. I’m a sinner, Trini pondered, tainted and weak, like Tía Pancha says. I must learn to be meek and humble and to ask forgiveness every day. All things, Tía Pancha told her, were the result of Divine Will, and if they were not sorry for their sins God would plunge them into Hell. Trini watched Buti’s eyes open wide with the frenzy of Tía Pancha’s sermons. I should be like Lupita, Trini thought, overwhelmed by all the praying and kneeling and the beating of the chest. Lupita’s face told her that Tía Pancha was simply tuned out. So many “thou shalt nots!”
They were two Our Fathers and one Hail Mary away from the stop sign when José Mario walked in from the kitchen glancing casually at the proceedings. Buti shifted the weight of his body to his other knee as Tía Pancha pointed a long, accusing finger at her brother:
“José Mario, kneel and pray! Be an example to your children.”
José Mario turned a deaf ear and walked out into the evening air.
“Pagan!” shouted Tía Pancha after him as Trini secretly wished they could be as brave as Papá. In answer to his defiance, Tía Pancha went into a flurry of ruegos to beseech forgiveness for her sinful brother. The children watched her antics with great fascination. Tía Pancha’s flair for the dramatic was unsurpassed where religion was concerned.
Trini remembered Tía Pancha’s other passion, cleanliness. Right next to Godliness! Demanding the same frenzy! Aside from all this, Tía Pancha was a loving, kind woman who showed it in many ways. Trini and the children waited for Tía Pancha to finish the last prayer. When the crucifix touched her forefinger, they scrambled, getting off their knees and climbing over one another. Then they stood obediently before Tía Pancha, waiting for her command:
“Come!”